** Smaller Download **

The Full MacTeX

TeX Live 2018: the full distribution with over 4 gigabytes
of material.

GUI Applications: front ends, utilities,
and a small amount of startup documentation.

Ghostscript 9.23

A Smaller Distribution, Basic TeX

TUG recommends the full MacTeX, even for beginners. It contains all files most users ever need. Beginners using it don't face
the daunting task of searching for missing components and figuring out how to install them in the TeX distribution.

BasicTeX is a much smaller alternate TeX Distribution for users who do not want to download the full TeX Live, or have unreliable internet connections. BasicTeX is a subset of TeX Live of size 110 megabytes instead of 2 gigabytes. BasicTeX does not overwrite the full distribution; it is installed in /usr/local/texlive/2018basic.

BasicTeX only contains the TeX Live piece of the full distribution; it does not contain GUI programs or Ghostscript. To use TeX on the Mac, it suffices to install BasicTeX and a front end. To make life easier for users who want to use BasicTeX instead of the full TeX Live, we include links below to various pieces of
MacTeX that can be added as needed.

BasicTeX was designed for easy download by users with limited download speed. The package is remarkably capable. It contains all of the standard tools needed to write TeX documents, including TeX, LaTeX, pdfTeX, MetaFont, dvips, MetaPost, and XeTeX. It contains AMSTeX, the Latin Modern Fonts, the TeX Live Manager to add and update packages from TeX Live, and the new SyncTeX.

In addition, this package installs a very small amount of documentation, mainly to explain recent changes or help new users get started. This
documentation is available separately as a zipped folder: DocsAndSpellUtilities

Ghostscript 9.23 from MacTeX

Ghostscript is not required for pdfLaTeX or XeTeX, but is often
useful for converting eps illustrations to other formats, or processing
dvi files. This link gives the full install package: